Saturday, September 10, 2011

I gave myself a writing exercise today.


Joanie Loon sits bug-eyed and yellow under a greasy blanket of hair in front of a laptop in the bedroom of her new downtown apartment, its wallpaper curling at the corners and floral in the ghastly sort of way, reminiscent of what she imagines the 1960's to have looked like. Her nails are chipped black and chewed up, fingers clicking on the mouse fast as a heartbeat as she groans through the pictures of herself on Facebook. Now that she's graduated college she has to find the most appropriate picture for her default. That's what employers do nowadays, the old people blabbed on and on about it. They Google the shit out of young applicants in search of bong rips, nip slips, and other evidence of drunken debauchery and general tomfooleries.
What does the Internet think of Joanie? Who exactly is she on the Internet? What do people think? How do they see her?
What Google shows is her Facebook, naturally, then her old Myspace, some vague webpage featuring a list of undergraduate scholarships, and--to her horror--her ONLINE DIARY, its description under the header reading: IF ONE MORE PERSON LOOKS AT ME I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I'M GOING TO KILL MYSE--(cached).
She thinks about deleting it as dozens of blog posts flood the screen. This journal's years and years old, there's gotta be over a hundred entries. She'd have to delete the whole thing or make each entry private.
Is it worth it?
She blinks.
This time would be better spent working on a cover letter. This time would be better spent exercising.
This time would be better spent cleaning her room.
She picks up a notepad from the desk and pops the cap off a Sharpie.
"Things I Should Do Right Now"
by Joanie Loon
1. Apply to jobs
2. Attract a mate
3. Call a parent
4. Go poop
5. Drink some water
6. Take a shower
7. Make a new friend
8. Volunteer
She scratches that one out.
8. Give a bum a cigarette.
She scratches that out, too.
8. Join a Facebook group about Darfur (etc)
9. Learn to play guitar
She decides these are all terrible.
10. Dance like no one's watching
11. Let the good times roll
12. Don't worry, be happy.
13. Commit suicide.

The box of warm beer in the kitchen is calling. She retreats and cracks one open, tries to gulp down as much as possible. When she can't stomach it anymore, she puts the can down and burps at her reflection in the mirror, her lips flapping like Homer Simpson.
"Heyyyy," she says to herself. Almost half the beer's gone. If she can do this twelve more times she'll be drunk in like what, ten minutes.
She sits back at the computer, looks at the can and thinks.

Too much work. Too gross.
Back to the screen.

Why are all the jobs on Craigslist scams?
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT POSITION ENTRY LEVEL 14.00 AN HOUR EMAIL RESUME $$$$$.
EGG DONORS NEEDED 12,000 DOLLARS NO PHONE CALLS.
Yeah, okay, she'll get right on that.
She clicks on her Gmail tab. One unread message from her OKCupid account.
"Ooh la la..."
According to this email, she's just been virtually winked at by a user who calls himself "Stackhouse." She clicks on his icon and his photo jumps up at her on the screen like an angry boner. He's wearing a baseball cap and facial hair that reminds her of something from a Rorschach test. Her eyes narrow, assessing. What a shit-show. He's got a tribal tattoo on his forearm and he was too stupid to turn the flash off in front of the mirror. Stackhouse. He's gotta be like thirty-something because he doesn't know shit about the Internet. Everyone's a stereotype with a pulse.
She starts typing a message for him: "Tits or get the fuck out."
Deleted. Whatever. He won't get it anyway.
Joanie sighs into her chair and looks at the clock. Seven-thirty. Is that too early to start drinking seriously? The question depresses her. Back to Facebook.
Would Joanie hire Joanie? Probably not.
This is insufferable. Now that she’s graduated she’s not allowed to drink beer or be silly in pictures? Or wear black nail polish or skirts higher than the knee or reference The Smiths in Sharpie on her purses or say Fuck or Shit or Cocksucker or sit on the sidewalk or roll her eyes or gauge her ears or smoke cigarettes or spit in public even if she’s got a really big loogie filling her mouth? How the fuck can anyone breathe around here?
The oppression grips her bladder.
In the bathroom she pees while staring at her toenails, which have seen better days. In the magazine rack is her unfinished novel. She’s been editing it every time she takes a shit. Lately she’s been all sorts of wound up. How do people with jobs live? Does everyone make some unspoken commitment to squaredom once they hit the workforce?

Friday, September 2, 2011

The Ambien Brain

 This is something I wrote while on Ambien a couple weeks ago. I thought it was hilarious so now it's here.

 *
look:

I'M STAYING AWAKE FOR THE DOUBLE FEATURE!

observe: hindered ability to perceive location. i actually thought i was at 110 s quarry for a moment.

Shapes do not assume their general movements when moved. These fuckers are unpredictable and must not be trusted at face value.


Interruption by the old woman faces in the towels. They don't even bother speaking. Hags.

Dust flies menacingly, without destination.

weird shit's happening on the couch. First, I'm here. Second, there seems to be an array of multicolored dust particles masquerading as insects moving about to and fro on the screen of the monitor. This is madness. At least the silly neon aesthetic shit show happening right now renders it threatless.

So tired. Must sleep, right? Must close eyes.
MOMENT: I feel as if I'm moving in a car. I can see the outside of the wheel before anyone else can. Praire land and rolling hills beyond; this is what I imagine a long drive through Kansas to look like. Of all places, why would Ambien send me to Kansas? I want my money back.


I'm on the couch, not in my room, I can't just lay here passed out and making devillish noises at six in the morning. Come on Internet, hit be with your best shot.

Why am I not in bed? Christopherrrrr.

This is just silly now. I suspect I might have to go outside for a cigarette but god knows all the horrors which lie beyond the knowing caresses of this leather couch. Some air might do me nicely, though. Maybe just for five? I'll check facebook and try not to wig out if my profile picture is the repo man doing doughnuts in my car while giving me a menacing thumbs-up under the boom of some mixtape my mother made me.

Wait!


Best idea. Wish I could fucking remember two seconds later. Whatever.

Yo I love dat gentle crisp wind at the end of August. I feel immediately less terrible once treating myself to some fresh Commons air. I have cankers on my tounge and it hurts so good to smoke cigarettes again.


Who or what is alive at 6am on a Wednesday morning? Citizens, from what crevices do you crawl?

Does coffee exist at this time?

Ooh, I hear the dull groan of the TCat. I look north at the wheezing blue bus, dragon-like, passing the library and consider whether Gimme might be open. Probably not, the pansies.


Did Matt Broadhead actually talk to me through my open window on the fire escape or did I hallucinate that? What did we talk about? Probably how shitty Lewiston is. When in doubt, always talk about Lewiston, a city so festering in bitter nostalgia that its downtown Jenga-like stacks of faded bricks, broken windows, and barbed wire is held up by leaning hipsters or No Trespassing signs covered in graffiti.

My baby, Lewiston.

Won't someone put us out of our misery? What did we do to deserve this city? Sure, we spilled poison into our beloved Androscoggin, sat back in our lawn chairs while local government axed our unions, and pushed our children into crowded daycares to be raised by people more frazzled and disillusioned than ourselves.
But think about it: before the industry, we had nothing.


Aqua-blue dots in the corner of my eye. Why aqua? How tacky.


Ugh, Starbucks or Gimmie? Is that the same as deciding between Democrat and Republican? I think I'm still technically registered as a Green Party member. What was I thinking?

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

the hours (unfinished)

At 9pm,
at last, the snow stopped falling,
all the lights in the house
are as yellow as the sun.
Upstairs in the attic bedroom,
a towel dresses the crack
of the door, so I can sit, smoking
another cigarette invisibly.


At 10pm,
I think of showering and imagine
myself naked and saggy behind a glass,
under the storm of a sodium sulfate spigot.
Instead, I check my Facebook and smile
at endless photographs of cats.


At 11pm,
silence sneaks into each room
of my house. Doors close softly
and the yellow lights fade. I am
all that's left. The calendar falls
onto the hardwood; I daydream
about finding another tack.


 At 12am,
the house on southern Quarry
sounds like a single mouse
scrolling through interviews
of Charlie Sheen. Ashamed,
I sneak into a cigarette and try
escaping; I intend to write a story
about a woman who sleeps forever.


At 1am,
my inbox has three new messages. For
a brief moment, there is joy. Two
are from companies, insisting they help
fix the size of my waist, and the other
from my future rich-prince husband
longing for me in his Nigerian palace.
The candles burn out. I fantasize.


At 2am,
night time cough syrup teases me
on the desk, beside a capless soda
from the bowels of the fridge, where
my groceries go to die, unloved
because they demand the energy
it takes to prepare them. I slice
crescent fingernails into the trash.


At 3am,
tv shows are funnier,  actors less
amateur, the sound of canned cheer
after the joke is less commanding.
A cookie drowns in a milk glass
while I watch Richard Simmons
dance away his heavy past.


At 4am,
the bed is still made. From the yellow eye
of my house, I watch men feed a truck
with my empty packs of cigarettes, tissues
in crusted wads from bad days, the empty
bottle of Cymbalta, whose label hides
its refill, and ashes from the empty bowl.


At 5am,
world news slaps my doormat. On
my bed, the pillows lay spooning
like lovers; I long for their empty
invitation. I squish another cigarette
into a mass grave of each smoky hour.
Refreshing pages for anything new
dulls the agony of having to think.